A Phone Call
by Wysawyg
Summary: On returning from a hunt, John Winchester has an important message waiting on his phone. Mix of humour hopefully, angst and Hurt!Dean and Worried!Sam thrown in. Series. Now complete.
1. Kidnap

**Title:** A Phone Call

**Author:** Wysawyg

**Summary:** On returning from a hunt, John Winchester has an important message waiting on his phone. Oneshot. Mix of humour (hopefully), angst and Hurt!Dean and Worried!Sam thrown in.

**Disclaimer:** Look there, everything the light touches… belongs to someone else. Even my disclaimer belongs to the Lion King.

**Author's notes: **This was originally a ThreeShot from a plot bunny at work ending with John hearing a phone call at the end of what happened. I quickly realised the phone call was the most interesting bit and scrapped the rest. Hopefully what is going on is fairly clear. Next chapter of Caidil gu math should be up in a day or so, just had to exorcise the plot bunny first.

You can assume Hamish is talking with a thick Scottish accent throughout, I just didn't want to phonetically type it out!

Set somewhere in the first season before the boys and dad have met up.

Feedback, whether positive, negative or neutral, is always, always welcome

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John Winchester walked into his motel room, salted the door and threw himself down on the sagging bed. He was exhausted. If Dean were here, he'd likely invent a whole new word to describe the state of exhaustion that John found himself in like 'flurfed' or 'completely gizterped.' If Sam were here, he'd probably recite the medical definition of exhaustion along with the symptoms that John displayed. John, however, was a simple man and so he was just exhausted.

He'd received word of a coven that had been making noise about having some high level demonic protection and had gone to investigate. As it turned out, they were just making noise. Nonetheless it had taken about five days to track them through the forest and eliminate them, John didn't like to leave messes behind him: they had a tendency to bite him in the ass.

He fetched his cell phone out of mud-stained duffel and plugged in the charger. It had run out of battery three days into the hunt. Moments later the phone buzzed and bounced on the bedside table, indicating he had a message. He switched it to speakerphone and pressed play.

The first two were fairly routine. A guy with a poltergeist problem in West Texas wanted his help and then a message from Caleb saying he'd heard of a suspicious house fire out in Oregon. John made a mental note to call Caleb back and eased back on the bed. The phone beeped one more time and the third message started.

"Hello John," A thick Scottish accent came over the tinny speakerphone, a voice which was vaguely familiar to him. "It's Hamish, you remember me? You helped me out with a slight demon problem a couple of years back."

Something about the man's tone sent a shiver up John's spine. It was friendly enough but there was an undercurrent, something that said this man knew a lot more than he was letting on and was waiting for the right moment to slip his ace out of his sleeve. As it turned out, he was an impatient man.

"Unfortunately it seems to be reoccurring as there's a very nasty demon nearby. A soul sucker. Takes the life right out of you. Ironic, eh?" There was a pause on the line, "Fortunately, it turns out your boys were in the area." That chill turned into a full size block of ice sitting on his spine and John recalled the case now. The man's son had been summoning the spirits and John hadn't managed to exorcise them fast enough to stop them dragging the boy off with them. The man had seemed grateful for his help at the time.

"Why don't you say hello to your father, boys?" Hamish's voice dripped malice and John took the phone off speaker and pressed it to his ear, desperate for any noise.

"Hi Dad," Dean's cheerful voice was loud and John had to pull the phone away from his ear. For a moment confusion flashed through him, unable to believe he'd misread the situation this badly, "I'd love to chat but me and Sam have got some sick bastard raising demons to take care of."

John flinched as he heard the sound of something solid smacking against flesh, likely his eldest's cheek, and the soft hiss of breath that was Dean's only exclamation of pain. He had never managed to instruct Dean in not winding up the forces of evil that usually managed to kidnap him at least once or twice a year.

"Cut from the same cloth as your father, I see." Hamish's voice was a low snarl, the words almost incomprehensible, "It took me a long time to set this up, to find the right demon. Even longer to make sure word filtered through to the ears of the right hunters and so very, very long until I could get Daddy dearest's cell phone number. I just want you to appreciate how much I've been looking forward to this." John wanted to walk out the door, get in the car and drive but he knew the place Hamish lived was at least a four hour drive and he couldn't remember how long ago this message had been received.

"I considered it a gift from God himself when that delightful phone message informed me that Mr John Winchester wasn't making house calls anymore but here's the number of his darling boy." John could hear Hamish's breathing close to the phone, "You really should train your boys better. I told them I was a friend of yours and the pair came charging in to help, right into my little trap."

"Yeah, our bad. I've really got to break that saving people's lives habit but they just don't make gum for that." That was Dean again and John raised a hand to rub at his forehead, pressing away the headache that only Dean could inspire.

"I could kill you now." The voice was further from the phone now and by position, John guessed him to be close to where Dean was secured, "Slit your throat and watch the blood trickle down. Drip, drip." There was a shuffle of moving feet, "But I won't. I want to hear you apologise first for all the mistakes your screw-up of a father made, I want your daddy to hear your last words become your last screams."

"Seriously got to work on your motivational techniques." Dean's voice held a slight quake in it, the only sign that the situation he was in was worrying him.

"Apologise or maybe I'll slit the baby brother's throat. How much blood do you think someone as tall as that can lose?"

"You know what, Hamish, I'm sorry." John braced himself for what he knew was about to come, knowing it wouldn't be the type of apology that Hamish wanted, "I'm sorry your son was so incredibly stupid as to dabble in the darkness and expect not to get his ankles wet. I'm sorry that you are so moronic that you honestly blame my father to not pulling your son's shit out of the fire quite quick enough. I'm sorry that.." There was a louder smack and this time John could hear Dean's cry, bitten back as it was.

"Dean, Ix-nay on the upid-Stay." The sound of Sam's voice brought intense relief to John. Until now the silence from Sam had left him worrying his youngest was either unconscious or worse. Instead it seemed he'd just been trying not to antagonise the crazy man, a technique his older sibling would do well to learn from.

"Oh, come on, Sammy. He's already threatened to use that really fugly demon to suck out our souls. There's not exactly much worse he can threaten. So the advantage is to us." John let out a frustrated grumble and made a note to himself that when he next saw his boys, he would have a long talk with Dean about inappropriate times for humour.

"Dean, we're chained to a wall, there's a demon over there and haven't had anything to eat or drink for three days, in what crazy game is that ever advantage us?" John winced as his youngest's succinct assessment of the situation.

"Winchester rules." Dean stated cockily and John couldn't help a laugh.

"You are wrong," Hamish's silk-smooth brogue became audible, "There is worse I can do." John heard the cool rasp of a well-sharpened knife being removed from its case and gritted his teeth, wanting to yell and curse, "It's a very stupid idea to annoy me, boy."

"You know what else is a stupid idea?" Dean replied and John decided a lecture wasn't enough for him, not nearly enough, "Chaining someone to a wall and not bothering to make sure the wall was sturdy." John heard a loud crack and the clink of a tumbling chain and felt a surge of pride at his son's engineered distraction, even John had fallen for it. Similar less-fruitful rattles followed and John guessed Sam was likely trying to free himself in the same way. John tried to send a telepathic message to his son, even knowing that the events had likely occurred hours or days before, also being incredibly aware of the fact he wasn't telepathic. Don't stand in front of Sammy, don't telegraph your weakness. He knew it would be no use and he heard the clinking of chains as Dean undoubtedly moved in front of his still-confined brother.

"Do you honestly think you can stand against my demon with two lengths of chain?" Hamish taunted but John heard him take a couple of steps back.

He could almost picture the grin on Dean's face, "Given the amount of teeth that thing has, I'm thinking clove oil would do far more damage or some really sugary sweets. Unfortunately you just really don't stock this place great for today's modern hunter so I guess the chain will just have to do. Anyway, I'm thinking I take care of you first. Chances are you haven't bound that thing properly and it'll be sent on the express shuttle back down to hell. Either that or it'll be released to run rampage over the neighbourhood but hell, I've never been a big fan of suburbia."

"I see right through your bravado to the quaking little boy beneath." John heard the click of a gun hammer being cocked back, "Can you stand against a gun?"

"Pretty sure I can. You see, I'm fairly sure you promised that thing a couple of souls when you summoned it. You shoot me dead and you've got one more soul to find and I'm thinking it's not the patient kind of demon that'll loiter around if you ask nicely."

"I didn't say I had to kill you." There was the cracking thunder of the trigger being pulled, followed by a pained yelp and the sound of a body hitting the floor.

"Dean? Dean!" Sam's panicked voice sounded and John wanted to scream along with him.

"I'm fine, Sammy." The slightly croaky noise of his eldest's voice was one of the sweetest sounds he'd ever heard.

He heard the heavy footsteps of Hamish and guessed them were walking over to his fallen son. It was followed by the heavy swish of something clanking against flesh and John couldn't resist a yell at his phone until he heard the thump of another body hitting the ground, "How'd you like it?" Dean taunted.

There was a soft, choking noise. A cough of suppressed air and words unable to be forced out past a constricted throat.

"What's that I hear?" Dean taunted, "I'm very sorry for being an idiot? Well, that's not quite good enough." There was a loud thump and the sound of a slump, "Phew, thought he'd never shut up."

"Dean, are you alright?" Sammy's worried voice came through and John could picture his youngest straining against the chains holding him in place, "Dean, the demon." He yelled.

"Aw shit. It couldn't have been the nice 'go directly to hell, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars' type, could it? Nooo, That'd make life far too easy and we're Winchesters: we don't do easy. You remember any handy exorcisms?"

He heard the limping scuff of feet and chains as Dean hauled himself back up to his feet and then a soft noise like cloth rustling. Finally there was a click and extra footsteps joined Dean's, obviously Sam had been freed, "Some of it." Sam said and began to recite some Latin.

There was a horrifying yowl that thundering down the phone line, corrupting into distortion like a metallic screech. "I think you pissed it off, Sammy." Dean said and there was a scuffle of motion following by a loud thump, "Yep," Dean's voice came from a different place that he'd last heard it, "Definitely pissed it off. Any bright ideas?"

"Duck!" came Sam's reply.

There was a crack of plaster shattering down off the walls. "Good idea." Dean's breathless voice came through, "Okay, Latin pisses it off. Holy water is so not available at the moment. Gun," He heard running footsteps and a skid followed by the click of a hammer being pulled back and the echoing of a shot. "Gun really pisses it off. Damn, where's the demon handbook when you need it?" There was another thud, a yelp and John clutched the phone closer to his ear.

"What the hell do you think you are doing, Dean?" He heard his youngest say, "Punching it in the face is hardly going to work."

John slapped his hand to his forehead and began to wonder where exactly he'd gone wrong with those boys.

"Hey, wait." He heard Sam again, "Dean, look at its face!"

"I'm really trying not to," Dean replied from a different place than Sam.

"Dean, look!" Sam sounded as frustrated as John felt, "Where your ring hit, its skin is blistered."

"Silver?" Dean exclaimed, "Demons don't react to silver."

"This one does! Got anything else on you?" There was another thud and John felt his heart race.

"Sammy, stay clear of the tentacles and no, I happen to have left the candelabra and the serving set in the mansion. Freaking silver! Maybe it isn't a demonic thing, maybe it's a fashion thing. He looks like he'd suit autumnal colours to me." John heard a crash and a long groan followed by the sound of something snapping, wood not bone, and a soft squish, "It's not a great fan of table legs either."

"Metal!" Sam yelled and John had to recoil from the phone, "Soul suckers hate metal, it binds them. Dean, catch!"

John could hear the whistling noise of something flying through the air then a slick, squishing noise. John gulped in a breath of air and held it.

"Dude, that's sick." Dean said, sounding more than a little disgusted.

"I've never actually seen brains melt before."

"Or bubble. Or is that fizzling?"

"I'd say fizzling." Sam concurred, "Woah, easy there. I need to take a look at that shoulder."

"That can wait 'til we get back to the motel. What are we going to do about Frankenstein over there?"

"Call the police. There's enough freaky shit in this house to convict him for something even if it's just being a sick bastard. Come on, Dean. Sit down before you fall down."

"Can't, I think I broke the only chair." Dean grumbled.

"Sit on the floor!"

"It's covered in demon brains."

"I think your jeans are a write-off anyway."

"My favourites," Dean sulked. John could a slide and a thump followed by a quiet, "Ow. So, what the hell was that thing anyway?"

"Dunno, we might have to pop in on Bobby. I don't want to run into one of those things again." There was a hiss of pain, sounded like it was from Dean, not Sam, "Hold still. The bullets still in there and I can't get it out now but I need to stop the bleeding before we can move."

"That's not easy with those giant hands of yours mauling me." There were moments of silence, broken only by the peeling noise of surgical tape and a few more non-verbal hisses from Dean, "There. Patched up for now. Let's go."

"Wait a moment." He heard Dean get up and the clatter of something being picked up from the floor.

"What are you doing? We can't kill him."

"I'm not planning on killing him," Dean said in the low, dangerous voice John recognised as his 'nobody messes with my little brother' voice, "Just making him wish he was dead."

"Dean, you can't cut off that." John felt a jolt of alarm. Sure, he knew that the life they led had messed his kids up a lot but surely not to that extent. He worried about what exactly had happened to them in captivity.

"Don't be such a stick in the mud, Sammy." There was a crackling rasp, three, four sweeps and then the whistling noise and a twanging noise as Dean probably tossed the knife into the wall, "There, much better."

There was another long silence and then Sam said, "Hmm, looks a lot different."

"You know what they say about scotsmen and beards." Dean replied and John breathed a sigh of relief, his kids were still screwed up enough to keep a psychiatrist in business for life but fortunately not that much. "Come on, let's go."

"Lean on me," Sam insisted in that 'I'm getting my way or else' tone of voice that John had come to dread, especially when he realised it could slide through his defences, "Oh shit." John felt his heart rate pick up again. What the hell was happening now? "The phone!"

John felt a mutual moment of confusion with Dean over the distance of time and space that the telephone line breached, forgetting for a moment about the very object clutched like a lifeline in his hand, "Phone?" Dean asked, "Oh shit, the phone. Do you think Dad heard all this? I'm so dead." John quietly agreed.

"Why are you dead?" Sam asked, "We got the monster."

"Yeah, but Dad's always ragging on me about not mouthing off to things trying to kill me while they are still in a position to kill me."

"So why do you keep doing it?"

"Because it's fun." John could hear the smirk present in his son's voice, "So, erm, Hi dad." He could hear Dean's voice close to the phone, "Don't worry, me and Sammy are fine."

"You call this fine?" Sam stropped in the background, coming closer, "Dean has a bullet in his shoulder, has been thrown into two walls and a table and…"

"Dude, shut up. I'm fine."

"Fine. Dean is the Winchester version of fine which is usually somewhere between actually fine and bleeding to death." John rolled his eyes, recognising the pissy note, even on a one-way line, his youngest could still manage to have an argument.

"Anyway," Dean interrupted before Sam could start, "We're fine, gonna head back to the motel. Hopefully see you around at some point. Anything else?" The voice changed direction, obviously asking his brother.

"How about 'where the hell are you?'" Came Sam's suggestion and John rolled his eyes.

"Dude, not now." Dean replied, "Yeah, anything. All's good. Erm, yeah, see you around." There was a long pause as his son tried to think of anything appropriate to say and John felt a physical need to reach through the phone to comfort him, "Oh Dad," He heard Dean say, "We really need to have a talk about the people you hang around with. Seriously."

With that, the phone call disconnected leaving John with a discordant voice listing options. John pushed his finger down on the two button and heard 'Message saved' in response. He stowed the phone and charger back in his bag and grabbed the duffel, all exhaustion having fled from his body at the first sound of his boys' voices. He walked out the truck and got in. He had unfinished business with Hamish MacLeish and John Winchester didn't leave messes behind.

A/N: Did it work? Could you understand what was going on? All feedback will bring my eternal adoration.


	2. Chatter

**Disclaimer:** The boys and their dad all belong to Eric Kripke and the CW. The amazingly long answer phone is all mine though. One line in here is stolen off Firefly which belongs to The Whedon, couldn't resist using it.

**Author notes: **This was a nice oneshot. At least until some very nice reviews said they could see a second part to this and suddenly so could my fingers. (I rarely give my brain any credit as half these stories seem to type themselves). At this rate, it might even end up as a series.

Though maybe the boys should be investigating John's paranormally high answer phone memory.

* * *

John Winchester is sitting in a motel room bathroom, washing the last traces of blood off his hands when he hears the phone ring again. He moved quickly to it and glanced down at the caller display seeing the word 'Dean' emblazoned upon the highlighted screen. Almost he presses the little green button that would connect him to his sons but he pulls away. He's spent far too long chasing the damn demon to let one little incident throw him off stead. 

It takes a long time before the phone falls silent and it's even longer after that before the phone oscillates to indicate whatever message left on the phone has finished. He forces himself up away from the phone and finishes drying his hands and packing up the few items he had to unpack, ready to make a swift getaway before the police make their hourly check on their 'guest'.

He loads his stuff into the truck and pays at the motel office, it's sensible to be as normal as possible when trying to be inconspicuous. Once in the truck, he reaches for one of his tapes to shove into the cassette player but finds his traitorous hands grasping the cell phone instead. He taps out a couple of numbers, listens through the instructions and then presses one to play the message, putting the phone on speaker and propping it up on the dashboard.

"Hey, It's Dean. I mean, you probably already guessed that and all given the modern wonders of caller ID and all." There's a long silence and John wonders whether his son just forget to hang up until he heard a cough and then voice returned, "Anyway, not entirely sure why I'm calling, just thought I should let you know that me and Sammy really are alright. I know what Sam said but you know how he is, one little booboo and the world is ending. You should have seen him after the… and when…" His son's voice breaks into chuckles and John realises with a pang that he has no idea what incidents are being referred too.

"Sam is out grabbing lunch, we're staying in a motel just about four hours south of ol' McDonald's funny farm. Yeah, I know, you probably don't want to know where we are, splitting up for safety and all that but I figured… I mean, just in case, you felt like dropping by. I know Sam'd like to see you."

There was another long silence and John's throat worked to find words to say to his son, forgetting for the moment that this was just a recorded message. Most people when attempting to think of something to say on a phone will start humming or making random dum-de-dum noises, John's son started whistling the opening to In a gadda de vida.

There was a click of a door opening and closing in the background and the soft whump of something landing nearby, "Who you on the phone to? Bobby?" He heard his youngest's voice.

"Nobody," Dean replied and John felt a stab of hurt in his chest, forcing his eyes away from where he'd been watching the phone and back onto the road.

"You talking to Dad?" They hadn't nicknamed the kid 'boy genius' for nothing. Admittedly John hadn't had much to do with the nickname but with most of the nicknames Dean made it, it had stuck.

"Sort of. Just his answerphone. I think we're becoming fast friends." There was a rustle of paper and a crunching squelch and John wrinkled his nose, he thought he'd taught his son better manners than that, "You want to talk to him?" He heard Dean ask Sam through a mouthful of food.

"Dude, close your mouth, that's disgusting." Sam replied, "And yes, I want to talk to him but not so much his answer phone message. You don't even know he got McDemon's phone call."

"Did you get any beer?" Dean asked hopefully.

"Not if you've drunk all the stuff we had in the fridge. You shouldn't be drinking at all, you probably have a concussion."

"No chance. Winchester skull: harder than diamond." He heard a couple of taps and then a very quiet, "Ow."

"Winchester will: Stubborner than a mule." Sam retorted, "Fine, give me the phone." There was some distortion of air rushing past the speaker as the phone was tossed across the room, "Hi Dad, It's Sam. Hope you are well and all."

"Lame," He heard Dean call from the opposite side of the room.

"Shut up." He heard the patented annoyed Sammy response, "Dean is being an idiot as usual."

"You are telling on me? Come on, Sammy, we're not ten anymore."

"Perhaps not physically, mentally however." There was a crinkling noise in the background and the slap of paper hitting head and then an irritated sigh, "Gross. It's still covered in ketchup and mustard and mayonnaise and all the other crap you have on your burger."

"It's called flavouring, Sammy. Helps create the illusion that you are actually eating something which is more than five percent meat."

"It's Sam and would you be quiet? You are the one who wanted me to talk to Dad."

The only thing he heard from Dean was a 'zzzzzip' noise and John could guess there'd probably been the accompanying hand gesture.

Sam dropped down to sotto voice and John leaned closer to his phone to make sure he heard every word, "Tell me, did Dean annoy the hell out of you this much when it was just you and him? 'cos I swear, since I went away, he's got ten times worse, maybe even twenty." John just rolled his eyes at his youngest, obviously his years away at Stanford learning to be a lawyer had made him forget how to be a brother – Annoying was Dean-ish for caring.

"I mean, I get it. He's still pissed at me for going away to college and this is his way to showing it without having to come out and talk about the dreaded feelings. Hell, you are probably pissed at me too, you probably aren't even listening to this, just hung up when Dean passed the phone over." John sighed and pulled the car over onto the dirt track that ran alongside the road and then leaned his face down on the steering wheel, resisting the temptation to bang it.

"Guess I'm safe to say what I want then 'cos, you know, yeah, I left, I walked out. You ditched Dean in the middle of a hunt. He came to visit not having a fucking clue where you were or even if you were dead, how could you do that to him? You know what he's like." John was filled with the urge to throttle his son, an unusual sensation so soon after wanting to hug him.

"Sammy, what'cha talking about?" He heard Dean call, the slightly stuffy sound indicating Dean was likely still eating. When Sam didn't immediately answer, Dean's voice turns sing-song, "Saaaaaammy, Sammmmy. Samuel. Samalina. Semolina. Mmm, Semolina. Hey, did you get pudding?" There was many days that John was very glad that demons had never thought to bring shiny things along while going up against his oldest, at least his attention span had improved from when he was a kid.

"Why don't you go down the store and buy some?" Sam said finally.

There was a suspicious note in Dean's voice when he spoke again, "You trying to get rid of me?"

"Frequently." Sam quipped back, "You'll need to buy some more aspirin, we're running low."

"Fine," He heard the clinking rattle of car keys and the door opening once more, "I'll drive over to the mini-mart. Just don't yell at Dad's answer phone too much, you'll hurt its feelings."

"See what I mean," Sam said with the aggrieved sigh perfected over many generations by younger siblings everywhere. He heard the creak of a bed and then even pacing of footsteps formed a background to the conversation, "This is pointless. I mean, you didn't come when I rang you about Dean getting hurt so it isn't likely you'll come now."

John just resisted the urge to pick up the phone and tossed it out of the window. He remembered the message about Dean, abrupt like all his conversations with Sam had been. He had got it about two weeks after it had been sent having spent the fortnight utterly lost in a forest after he made the mistake of pissing off the local dryad. The message had been followed by one in the growling tone of Joshua stating just "Your boys are fine, thought you'd like to know." The ever-reticent man somehow manages to make those words an accusation in themselves. Sometimes John wondered if all his interaction with other humans from now on would be in phone messages but then he realised he was the one that never answered the phone.

"So, here we are. Dean is already anxious to get onto the next job but I know his shoulder is plaguing him. I practically had to dose him with a sedative before he'd stay still long enough for me to get the bullet out of his shoulder. Always got to be a good soldier. Oh, that reminds me." He heard a sucking noise and an insistent humming noise following by the chink of a bottle, "Trick I learnt off Bobby. He uses holy water," John heard the quiet whoosh of something followed by swirling liquid, "I use sedatives. Betcha wondered why you kept falling asleep so easily when you got injured, eh?" He heard a clink as the bottle was replaced in the fridge door and found himself alternating with annoyance and pride at his son's ingenuity. He knew he needed to have a word with Bobby. "Placement is everything," Sam continued, "You always go for the beer on the outside of the fridge door because it's closest. Dean always goes for the one on the inside of the door because it's coldest." There's a tapping noise, the chink of fingernail against the plastic side of the phone, "I shouldn't have let Dean drive, he probably has a concussion. Idiot. You should've seen that demon, Dad, it was, well, it really was fugly." The tapping increased, "I swear in about twenty years time, some snot-nosed wannabe will be looking down a demon hunting book and will find a picture of the rare fugly demon. Why is it Dean's nicknames always stick?"

"I don't know, son." John couldn't resist saying to the phone, picking it up off the dashboard and cradling it in one hand. "He's your brother."

"He's my brother." Sam concurred and for a moment, John forgot this wasn't a real conversation. "Look, I'm going to go take a look out for Dean. I guess we'll probably ring again sometime. If we don't see you first." He heard a snort and a self-deprecating, "Yeah, right. Bye Dad." With a click, the message ended. John didn't even wait for the mechanical voice to start listing his options before pressing two to save.

A/N: Would you like to see more? Please let me know with that lovely review button!


	3. Falling

**Title:** A Phone Call

**Author: **Wysawyg

**Summary: **John returns from another disastrous attempt to get the demon to find another answer phone message waiting for him.

**Disclaimer: **The boys, their dad and all that belongs to Kripke and the people at the CW. I suspect John's giant answerphone is somehow the product of some demonic pact though so that belongs to whoever the interested party is.

**Author Notes: **I think I've figured out a pattern now. Will try to alternate 'action' phone calls with 'talky' phone calls. I've got the next two in concept stage though my LongShots are taking up most of my brain power.

* * *

John Winchester walked into his motel room, the bitter dregs of smoke and ash clinging to his clothes, an acrid physical manifestation of the failure he felt. He'd been in this town for a whole week trying to track down when the demon would appear, following the clues he'd seen before. Even with all that, he arrived at the house minutes after the fire truck. Already sitting out on the lawn was a man who could have been a reflection of John with a baby cradled in his arms and tears making tracks down the soot on his face. John had just stood there and watched, imprinting the memory of another family destroyed onto his memory.

He sagged onto the bed, running a hand back through his short hair and muttering expletives to the ceiling that seemed to mock him. He turned to his side and looked at the cell phone resting on the bedside cabinet where he had left it that morning. A small red phone flashed incessantly on the screen, informing him he had an answer phone message. He took the phone and scrolled through the list of recent calls.

There were a couple of missed calls from Jefferson, one from Pastor Jim and finally one from Dean. He knew without having to check which one of them the answer phone message would be from. He glanced longingly towards the bathroom, wanting to scrub at his skin until all the lingering traces of smoke were gone. Listening to the answer phone would be reward and penance at the same time though for his failure and John tapped out the buttons.

"Dean, you okay?" It was Sam's distant sounding voice which was heard first followed by a creak and the sound of footsteps. The only sound indicating that his older son was present was a long drawn out groan. "Just stay there, Dean. I'll figure out how to get to you."

"Stay up there, Sammy," Dean's voice sounded a little slurred, "Need to find the bones. Salt 'n' burn then come back."

"I'm not leaving you here." Sam said in the kind of tone that subconsciously added 'you idiot' to the end and John smirked.

"Well, I'm not going anywhere." John was glad to hear Dean's voice growing stronger as he shook off the effects of whatever happened. John tried to place together what he happened. Salt and burn meant poltergeist. Poltergeist meant house. Creaking of wood meant old house. The wooziness in his eldest's voice and concern in the younger's likely meant a fall, probably to a part of the house not easily reachable. "Sam, if Casper shows up now, I really will be in shit. Just find the bones and burn them, I think it's pretty stable here."

John could hear soft shuffles of movement and felt like slapping a palm to his forehead. When in an unstable situation, stay still and try not to disturb it. Put Dean on a rope bridge and he'd probably be one of those people to wobble it from side to side to see if it gives. He heard a falling clatter and held his breath as the same time as he heard a similar hiss from Sam.

"Make that mostly stable," Dean said in a small voice, no noise betraying any attempted movements now.

"Do you promise to stay still?" Sam asked, "And I mean absolutely still. Not 'I just wanted to see if that bit was loose.' Not 'I had an itch.' Definitely not 'I thought I might be able to get down.'" He could hear a few attempted protests from Dean which were cut off as Sam continued talking.

"Yeah, yeah. I'll be a good little wall ornament. Just hurry up and get the spook, will you?" John heard the footsteps of Sam walking away and breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn't enamoured with the idea of a poltergeist floating around when his son was trapped either. There'd been enough incidents like that while the boys were young.

Years of long car journeys had given John ample opportunity to observe the behaviour of a bored Dean Winchester, almost to the point he could predict exactly when each of the signs would show up. First came the humming, tuneless at first and then meandering through several of Dean's favourite tunes, not staying in any one tune for longer than a couple of bars.

Next would normally come the foot tapping but he guessed Dean's precarious position would make that one more difficult. Dean replaced the foot tapping with clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth repeatedly, first one note and then going up and down the scale. "Come on, Sammy," He heard Dean say, "Getting slow." He'd need to point out to Dean that insulting his brother only worked when he was in earshot.

"Come on," Dean said in exasperation as the minutes stretched by. It didn't sound too long for a salt and burn by John's reckoning but then time always went slower when you were waiting instead of doing. "Jefferson could have done it by now and he would've stopped to use his new ghost serum on the damn thing first which, idly, is your own fault for telling him about the Casper movie in the first place."

John began to worry a little about his boy. Dean's groan had sounded fairly quickly after Sam's call but that didn't rule out a brief spell of unconsciousness and a concussion to the rock hard Winchester skull. That would explain why his boy appeared to be holding a conversation with a brother who quite plainly wasn't there. But then again there was no baseline for normal Dean behaviour, even when he didn't have a concussion.

There was a thump and for a heart stopping moment John thought Dean had fallen. He didn't know exactly where his boy was but he knew from Sam's worried tone that it was high enough for a fall to be dangerous. Then his brain filtered the information and let him know that the thump had been more distant. That was hardly less of a worry, just one involving a different son.

Apparently he wasn't the only one concerned as he heard a scraping of rubble as Dean began to move from wherever he was. John cussed at his son, both of them getting hurt would not help the situation. John only had himself to blame. He had encouraged Dean's burgeoning protective instincts when the boys were young so it should not have been a surprise that they'd only grown more as Dean had.

There was another thump and a cut off cry and he heard Dean's movements become more frantic until there was a sliding clatter following by another louder thump and a bitten-off cry in his eldest's distinct voice. The silence that followed almost physically hurt John, only the susurrus of breathing reassuring.

There was a mumble and a pained groan as his son was probably pulling himself up to his feet. "Fuck," He heard the exclamation and then another thump. He heard a couple more hisses, probably as a result of Dean checking his injury to assess how bad it was and another rustle of fabric and some halted, limping footsteps.

The pattern of the footsteps changed, becoming more irregular and accompanied by the creak that hinted towards stairs. The other distant noises of Sam were silent now and he could hear Dean's pace quickening. Step, hiss, step, hiss, step, hiss. Then they stopped.

He could hear a tentative shifting of feet, Dean assessing something, thinking over his options. John silently urged him on, wanting more than anything to know his youngest boy was alright. Dean apparently made up his mind as there was the metallic click of a trigger pulled back and the sharp crack of foot against door and the bang of a weapon discharge.

"Mrrrrph," John could tell Dean was likely in agony at that moment, the necessity of kicking the door meaning resting his weight fully on his bad leg. He heard rapid limps, accompanied by the click of the trigger drawn back again, "Sammy? Come on, no snoozing on the job."

Another staccato pop meant the ghost had probably returned and been dispatched once again and he heard the click as Dean reloaded the shotgun. There was still no noise from his youngest but neither did Dean sound too panicked so the Sam must at least be breathing.

"If I were bones, where would I be?" Dean addressed the air and John wanted to point out that Dean was bones, just bones wrapped in sinew, muscle and skin. "Any help, Sammy? You couldn't at least have fallen pointing the right way? Bad Lassie."

"So this guy went missing in his house," There was another crack pop as Dean blasted the spook with rock salt again, not even breaking his thread of speech, "police turned over the garden so he's not out there, basement was a no go. What's special about this room, Sammy?" He heard the shuffle off footsteps, "Four walls, ceiling, floor. Pretty standard room. Door, window. Wait, what are you lying on?"

The footsteps paused and moved over, "Sorry about this," There was a dragging noise of body against floor and a high squeak from Dean from the pain, "Bad lassie, you aren't supposed to lie on Timmy in the well. No scoobie snacks." John was pretty much certain of his diagnosis of concussion by now.

There was an extended creak of wood followed by a loud snap and a disgusted groan from Dean, "Urgh. That just smells nasty. How did we not notice this?"

There was a soft mumble in response and he could almost see Dean instantly change focus, "Sammy? Back with me? Just lie there and let me do all the hard work as normal, why don't you?" There was a rattling as Dean sprinkled salt over the bones followed by the liquid splash of lighter fluid then a pause. "Sam? You really need to be more awake now. I can't carry you and this house is about to be on fire." Another crack of a gunshot sent the ghost away followed by another swift reload and a double pop-pop. The ghost had obviously realised what was happening and was going in guns blazing.

"I am Henry the eighth, I am. Henry the eighth, I am, I am. I got married the widow next door, she's been married seven times before." When Dean started singing, John began wondering if he'd somehow slipped into an alternate dimension where his son was completely fucking insane, "All of them were called Henry. I'm Henry the eighth, I am." He heard the double-crack of shots fired again followed by an indrawn breath, "I am Henry the eighth, I am. Henry the eighth I am, I am. Gonna keep singing this 'til you start moving Sammy." So that is what it is about. It was a novel strategy, he'd give his boy that. "I got married to the widow next door, she'd been married seven times before." There was a pause and a grumble before Dean switched strategy again.

"I know a song that'll get on your nerves, get on your nerves, get on your nerves. I know a song that'll get on your nerves, get get on your nerves."

"Shut the fuck up, Dean," He heard Sam's pained grumble, "Go back to sleep."

"No sleeping, Sammy." Reload, pop-pop, "I'd really appreciate a little help with the ghost trying to kill me. As long as it's a convenient time."

"Wha?" Sam's dazed response followed by, "Shit! What are you doing here? I told you to stay where you were."

"Is that really the issue here?" Dean exclaimed, "Take the gun. Keep the spook away while I light the remains then get ready to run." John had heard from Missouri that Sam had some sort of psychic talent and he hoped that it would pick up on the injury his brother was hiding.

"You don't look like you can do a lot of running." Sam said and John briefly blessed his boy.

"I can do well enough," Dean replied. Dean apparently decided to take away Sam's choice in the matter as there was click of a lighter, following the crackle of flames. The sound haunting John for the second time, he hoped this time everyone would get out of the house alive.

There was the rapid sound of footsteps, broken by the occasional dry cough and stumble until the footsteps stopped, the ragged sound of breathing taking over. "Dean, you alright?"

"Yeah," Dean croaked between coughs, "Starting to rethink my love of haunted houses. You alright? You were out for a while there. Almost had me worried."

"Winchester skull, hard as diamond." Sam answered, "So what've you done to your leg?"

"Just twisted my ankle, I think. Lets just get back to the motel and worry about it later."

"I'm driving."

"I can drive."

"Maybe you can but you aren't."

"Hmph. I'll ring Caleb, tell him the spook is taken care of." He heard the noise as the phone was extracted from his pocket, "Shit."

"What?" Sam was instantly worried.

"I must've hit some buttons when I fell. The phone speed-dialled someone."

"Who?" Sam asked.

"Dad, shit. I dunno how long it's been on. Could've been the first or second fall."

"Second fall?"

"I didn't exactly fly down from where you left me, Sammy." He heard his son cough, clearing the croak out of his voice, "Hi Dad. Dunno how much of that you heard. Sorry about that. We're both fine. See you sometime." The dial tone followed and John pressed two to save the message to the growing collection, heading into the bathroom for that shower.


	4. Shadows

**Title: **A Phone Call

**Author: **Wysawyg

**Summary: **Another message left on the Amazingly Long John Winchester answerphone. Post-Shadow.

**Disclaimer: **Yes, My Name is Eric Kripke and I own Supernatural. Not convincing? Really? Damn it. I'll try again later. For now, yes, they don't belong to me. I'll accept them if anyone is offering though.

**Authors Notes: **Not sure about this one. Sam decided he wanted to whine despite my best efforts and nothing I could do would stop him. Hopefully it's still an okay read. It's short at least. Yey for alerts being back though I'm sure y'all too busy reading the other fics you've missed to read this!

* * *

John Winchester had just reached for the first aid kit when he heard the familiar ring of his cell phone. He reached across to his duffel, wincing at the motion tugging at the long gashes across his chest, and pulled out the phone. Caller display said Sam and John frowned. His son disobeying him had become pretty commonplace in the year leading up to Sam's exit to Stanford but Sam disobeying Dean had been considerably more rare. John was sure Dean's proscription against contact would include the phone.

He placed the phone down on the table and went back to the first aid kit, pulling his shirt to get a better look at the series of slices. They looked like they'd definitely need stitches and John regretted leaving his boys behind, there was nothing worse than putting stitches in yourself except trying to set your own bone. The phone stopped ringing and John suspected there'd be another rambling answer phone message waiting for him.

By the time he had finished stitching and wrapping the wounds on his chest and placing butterflies over the ones on his face, there was a flashing telephone icon. He really shouldn't listen, Jefferson had contacted him the week before about a potential poltergeist up north, a poltergeist in the same house that John had done an exorcism the fortnight before.

The longer he left the icon silently flashing, the more worries began to creep in. The last time he'd had a phone message from Sam, it had been a lovely curt message saying basically 'Doctors saying Dean's going die, I'll do what I can. Thought you might want to know.' Dean hadn't seemed that injured now but then Dean was a master of hiding injuries up until the point he collapsed, an annoying trait that John had tried to drill out of him with little success.

Unfortunately John's fingers had absolutely no inclination to listen to what he planned to do. He lay back on the bed, finding a comfortable spot then held the phone out, tapping in the numbers to access his voice mail and pressed the phone again his ear.

"You suck!" His youngest son's voice greeted him almost instantly that the recorded voice stopped listing date and time the message was recorded, "I know you are there. Would it really hurt that much to just pick up the damn phone for once?"

There was a background hiss to the phone and John tried to place where his boy was. Somewhere that it was raining? The splash was too steady though, not the uneven patter of rainfall. The shower? John was fairly sure he and his sons didn't have that kind of relationship: as screwed up as his relationship with his son was. The obvious answer was that his youngest was trying to hide the fact he'd called from his eldest and that just about pissed John off.

John wasn't the only one pissed off. "You spent years ordering us about, not listening to a word we said and now is when you choose to listen? You remember Dean's definition of fine, right? This time 'fine' meant me putting about thirty stitches into my brother. He's out on the bed stubbornly refusing to take any painkillers and I haven't managed to spike any beers yet so I'll be having a miserable evening. How about you? Oh, that's right you can't answer, can you?" Sam taunted, hitting closer to the nerve than he probably knew.

John wanted to hang up on the message, leaving it for a time when the memory of leaving behind his boys once again wasn't quite so raw. He couldn't bring himself to hang up though, the only concession was to move the phone further from his ear.

"Maybe we should have some of the chats that we should have had when you were here. I don't know what you might have picked up on family bonding but it's usually more than 'Hi. Was the woman you killed evil? Argh, I'm being attacked. Good bye'" Sarcasm never really suited Sam's voice but that didn't mean his youngest couldn't wield it as sharply as any weapon sometimes.

"So what's happened since we last saw you? I met Cassie." There was a soft disgusted noise, "What a bitch. Did you ever get a chance to meet Cassie?"

Remembrance came to him in a flash of a face: cocoa skin, wavy dark hair, the girl who had almost tamed his son. Also the one that had kicked his son out when he'd told her the truth. John wasn't sure why this was coming up now but he was sure all would be revealed so he waited patiently.

"I'm guessing you did. Not much gets passed you. I've met her. You aren't going to believe this but she rang Dean! I mean, from the sounds of it, she practically kicked him out on his ass when he told her the truth and now she finds herself a little over her head and she rings him. What's more, he went running. I've never been glad before that my brother mostly sticks to bimbos."

John snerked when for once his youngest son's assessment of something matched his own.

"But what's going on there, Dad. Dean takes one attempt at normal and it's just so wrong. A girl that's all wrong for him. A place which is wrong for him. I mean, come on, racist fucking trucks!" John blinked at that and wished the phone had a rewind button so he could check his son really had said what he'd just said, "What does it say, Dad, when Dean has so little idea of what normal is that he gets it so fucking wrong when he tries?" There was no attempt at concealment at the disgust in Sam's voice.

John would have liked to point out that Dean wasn't the one who'd hooked up with a carbon copy of their mother. The first time John had seen Jessica, on one of his guilt-ridden pilgrimages to Stanford, it had been like seeing Mary again. A more modern version of Mary, his Mary would never have worn a skirt that short back then. She'd been a good catholic girl. John had rubbed off on her too much in the too few years of their marriage.

"But then I've hardly done a better job." Sam admitted and John heard the heavy trace of guilt in the boy's voice. "That girl? The one who set the Daevas on us? Guess whose fault it is that she met the Winchesters." There was a huff of a sigh, "That's right, the screw-up. I bet Dean would have spotted that she was a demon straight off."

John would have to fill his youngest in on the story of Dean and the succubus at some point. He heard a pounding in the background and Dean's voice filtering through, "Sam, hurry the fuck up. Some of us need to shower too and I'd appreciate some hot water."

"You can't get your stitches wet," He heard Sammy yell back, accompanied by the staccato tapping of fingers against the side of the phone forgotten in his hand.

"I'll sellotape a plastic bag to them, just hurry the fuck up, alright?" Dean's muffled voice replied.

John heard Sam's sigh and the phone pressed to his mouth again, "Guess I better get going. Just ring sometime alright? I just want to talk to you." With that, the phone ended and John slid his fingers to save the message, leaning back on his bed. He reached into his duffel and pulled out the small bottle of painkillers that he wasn't going to take. He tapped his finger on the side, listening to the rattle as the pills inside jumped against the side before pulling his arm back and tossing them full force against the side of the wall.

"Want to talk to you too, Sammy," He told the silent phone before settling in for a sleepless night, thinking of his boys. Impossibly close. Achingly distant.

A/N: Feedback makes the world go around. Do you want to be responsible for stopping the world? do you? do you? I thought not!


	5. Messages

**Title: **A Phone Call

**Author: **Wysawyg

**Disclaimer: **_checks pockets_ I've got a couple of coppers and a pack of chewing gum. That's enough to buy the Supernatural boys, right? Right? Oh. Guess they still ain't mine.

**Summary: **John leaves a gig to find another series of phone messages waiting for him.

**A/N: **Fast post on this one 'cos I wasn't too happy with the last one (which was just a stop-gap for this one really). Hope y'all like this. I plan one more 'A Phone Call' which pretty much carries it up to the boys meeting up with John again and then no more phone calls after that. _sniff_

* * *

John slides into his truck, trying not to rest too much weight on the mess of bruises that comprises his left side. He should stay another night in this place, give the bruises a chance to turn from violent blue and black to the gentler mottling of green and purple but he doesn't dare. Instead he slides into the truck, pretends it doesn't hurt, places his cell phone up on the dashboard and revs the engine, pulling out of the town.

Stupid Podunk town! It always amazes John just how stupid some places can be with regards to Supernatural. It's one thing not to see the ghost in the flickering lights or the werewolves in the wild dog attacks but you'd think when two virgins, one man and one woman, started disappearing on the same night every month for five months in a row that they might start to get a clue. Instead the idiots just papered the town with Missing person posters and locked their doors at night.

It hadn't taken John that long to solve. Old god of the land, fertility rites, the standard deal. He couldn't kill it; it was too old for the concept of death to have any meaning but he at least made sure that those that wanted to wait for their wedding day would be safe for a while. He'd had to spend a night in the cells. Apparently going around asking young men and women if they were virgins raised some eyebrows in this town. Bunch of frigging prudes. Either way, John had managed to find some when he got out and had just tracked them 'til the old one came to take its dues. A little spell persuasion to go hibernate for another thousand years and John was on the road.

That wasn't the most irritating thing about the town though. The most irritating thing about it was that despite the fact John was fairly sure they were in the twenty first century, this backwater nowhere didn't have any cell phone coverage. Honestly, how difficult was it to erect a few towers? Point a few satellites this way? It wasn't that John was paranoid, mind you. You can't be paranoid when there are things in the world that really are out to get you.

It wasn't like every time he strayed from his phone or couldn't check his phone for a few days that his boys managed to get themselves kidnapped or trapped in haunted houses or shot or electrocuted or possessed or one of any number of things that couldn't go wrong in the world he had brought his sons up in. Only, it had been every time. John had never been one for irrational phobias but he was beginning to really hate his phone.

It wasn't like there was anything he could do if something had gone wrong except press the damn thing to his ear and hope for a happy ending. It wasn't like the quicker he listened to the messages, the more likely they'd be good. It wasn't like the needle on his speedometer was edging further and further to the right. It wasn't like he was watching the phone more than the road, waiting for the moment that it stopped saying 'no signal' and started saying 'messages received.' Yeah. It wasn't like that.

When the 'no signal' became an increasing display of bars, John held his breath. When the phone twitched and vibrated the waiting messages, John let the air out with an expulsive huff and with completely steady fingers honestly, he tapped out the answer phone message and pressed the phone to his ear, keeping his eyes on the road now.

The monotonous mechanical voice on the other end told him he had seventeen messages, John ended the call and put the phone back down on the dash. His first thought was that he'd somehow tapped into Paris Hilton's answerphone and he cursed himself for not listening. He wouldn't have to hustle for months if he got hush money for that.

He picked up the phone again and dialled. Listening as the voice told him once again that there were seventeen messages waiting for him.

He hung up and put the phone down once more. Maybe he'd forgotten his birthday again and there was seventeenfriends wishing him many happy returns. Except that would have required having seventeenfriends or maybe just one friend with terrible short-term memory. Given the frequency at which the average hunter got tossed into a wall that was hardly impossible.

He took in a deep breath, tapping out the answer phone one more time, switching the phone to speaker and placed it as cautiously as a child onto the dash.

'First new message' The mechanical voice told him, 'Message received on Monday the fourteenth of September at seven forty-two p.m.' 

"Hey Dad," Dean's voice was cheerful but it didn't stop a pool of dread forming in his father's stomach. Dean being cool, calm and collected didn't mean that he wasn't, also, bleeding to death. Even if he was fine now, how would he be sixteen messages down the line? "Me 'n' Sam are in Octon, Nevada. Been poking around a suspected werewolf and a few people spoke of someone poking about the same area 'bout a year ago. Sounded a bit like you. If you can let us know if it was you and what you hunted here, that'd be great and all. Erm, nothing in the journal. Anyway. That's all. Thanks Dad." The message ended and John wandered whether there was a way to slow the flow of messages as he had a feeling he'd need a natural break between them. Even that simple one had his heart pounding a little faster in his chest. Just getting old, Johnny, he told himself.

'Second new message. Message received on Tuesday the fifteenth of September at twelve thirty-one p.m.'

"Dad, me again." Dean's voice said, "Still in Octon. Found out that it's definitely not a werewolf. Dug up the corpse of the last victim and it was a little ripe, must've been killed before the lunar cycle. Not much to say, just wanted to let you know we know it isn't a werewolf, in case you were going to ring to tell us that. Erm. Yeah. So. See you around sometime, maybe." There was a pause and he could almost feel his son's finger loitering over the end call button. "Hey Sammy, get the hell out of the bathroom. The rest of us smell of mouldy dead person too." The call ended there and John felt some relief. Fifteenmore calls of rambling Dean he could (mostly) cope with.

'Third new message. Message received on Tuesday the fifteenth of September at eleven fifty-six p.m.'

"You suck," A slurred loud voice resonated the tinny speakers of the phone, "You know you really suck." It took John a moment to place the drunken voice as that of his younger son.

"Sam, give me the goddamn phone," He could hear his eldest's voice coming through, slightly distant.

"No, M'talking to Dad. Get your own phone." Sam slurred back.

"That is my phone!" He heard Dean's distant voice.

Sam ignored his brother. "Where was I? Oh yeah, you suck." John began to wonder what had happened to his boy's expansive college vocabulary, "We're in this fucking town 'cos you messed up on a hunt and you can't even be bothered to call and tell us what it was? Well, stuff you and your car and your boots and your jacket and your hair and…"

"Sam, I mean it. Give me the goddamn phone." Dean's voice went up a notch of irritation, "Put those gigantor arms down and Give. Me. The. Phone."

"Shut up, Dean," Sam whined, "S'not my fault you're a shrimp." His son giggled, honest to damn giggling and, you know, John was ready to go back to rambling Dean now. "Shrimpy Dean. Stubby li'l arms. Ouch."

There was the clatter of a dropped phone and the scuttle of plastic against wood as his sons scrabbled for the device. There were a few pained noises and muffled thumps before another voice finally took over the noise once more, "Hey Dad. Let Sam have a bit much to drink. Just ignore that, right? See you." And once more, his son hung up on him.

'Fourth new message. Message received on Wednesday the sixteenth of September at eight oh-seven a.m.'

"Dad, it's Sam." His youngest boy's voice sounded cracked and John couldn't help a wince for the hangover he knew the boy was suffering. Sam had inherited his hangovers off John. Dean was like Mary, could drink himself under the table and wake the next morning with a spring in his step. "About last night. Erm, Sorry. Won't let it happen again, sir. That's all. Bye."

'Fifth new message. Message received on Thursday the seventeenth of September at nine fifty-seven p.m.'

John steeled himself another tirade but instead of either of his sons' voices, the voice he heard was deeper and gruffer. "John, it's Bobby. I know you didn't expect to hear from me again. Anyway, got a call from your boys about some case they're on. Called back to try and get more information but they aren't picking up. They don't seem to have got that knack of yours for never answering your damn phone so I'll admit it's got me a mite worried. Probably fine but if you've heard from them," There was a barked off laugh there, "or even, hell, spoken to them. Just let me know, alright?"

John let out a sigh and rubbed a hand back through his hair, sure there'd be a few more grey hairs sprouted there. The boys were fine, he tried to convince himself. Maybe Dean had dropped his phone. Maybe Sam had smashed the phone in a fit of pique. Maybe the world was actually going to smile at the Winchesters for once and have everything turned out to be fine. Yeah, and maybe unicorns shot rainbows out of their asses.

'Sixth new message. Message received on Friday the eighteenth of September at eight fifteen a.m.'

"John," Bobby's gravelled voice wasn't what John wanted to hear after the last call but it was all he had. "Look at your phone a moment. You might see a button, looks a bit green, probably has a phone depicted on it. Probably not all that artistic but you can't exactly fit a Monet on a cell phone. Now, let me tell you a magical secret. You press that button and it'll connect you to someone else who could be miles away. Amazing, eh? Fancy using it sometime?"

"Either way, still not heard from your boys. Just let me know okay. If you are doing this to punish me, you old bastard, just remember I know all the good hexes." Bobby hung up at that but his words lingering in John's mind. John didn't give a damn about the green button, he wanted the pause button or, even better, the rewind. He wanted to rewind to when the first message came through so he could call his boys. Not that he had a clue what they were hunting. Places had stopped having names after a few years on the road. They were recollected by injuries and by monsters. He could drive from place-where-Dean-got-his-arm-broke to Bitch-of-a-fairy and stop off in Witch-cursed-Sam's-memory-away without noting a single place name.

'Seventh new message. Message received on Friday the eighteenth of September at eight seventeen p.m.'

"Hi," A cheerful female voice piped down the line and John blinked in confusion. "You've won our annual prize draw! All you need to do to claim one of the fabulous prizes is dial 555-0705 and quote your prize draw code which is One-one-one-four-two-three. Don't delay. The prize is just waiting for you."

As a lower pitched voice rattled quickly all the conditions of the offer, John gritted his teeth, half-tempted to find out what company it was and hunt them down for interrupting his conversation with his boys.

'Eight new message. Message received on Friday the eighteenth of September at twelve forty-three p.m.'

John hoped this would be Dean or Sam with some excuse about their phones getting lost. He hoped they'd be saying they'd got the monster or at least giving him more details to try and work out exactly where they were and what they were dealing with. He got half his wish: it was Sam.

"Dad," His youngest's voice was small and he could hear a tremor in it, "Dad, It's Sam. I'm in hospital." There was a long silence filled only with the sound of deep breaths on the other end and the cut-off sound of words that didn't make it out of Sam's mouth, "Dad, It's Dean. I… I don't know where he is. I woke up here and Dean, he's not here, Dad, and I don't know where he is. Just get here, okay? Please, just get here." The silence only lasted a few moments before the mechanical voice taunted him with the next waiting message.

'Ninth new message. Message received on Friday the eighteenth of September at two twenty-two p.m.'

"Dad, Sam again." Sam's voice sounded calmer this time and for a brief moment, John was sure he'd say that Dean was fine, had been hiding in the bathroom the whole time, it was all a prank gone too far. He was too old for fantasy. "I'm hoping you are on the road now, heading here. Maybe you won't even get this message until you are here." John pulled the car over to the side of the road and pulled out his roadmap, searching for Octon. Maybe he couldn't be heading there now but he could try and rectify his mistake now. When he found the town, barely more than a blip, the distance was more than eight hours way. Nonetheless, John started the engine again and started down the road which would take him in the right direction.

"I don't know how much Dean has told you. We thought it was a werewolf at first but the lunar cycle is wrong. We were out in the wood trying to track down where the victim was left. There was a rustle in the trees, something moving around. I heard Dean cry out, tried to get to him but something hit me on the back of the head. I woke up in hospital. I'm alright. Twisted my ankle and I'll have a few new scars. I'm going to go out and look for Dean as soon as I can."

"Previous victims were all clawed up," Sam's voice hitched then and fell silent to regain composure. John listened right along with him, pushing his foot down on the accelerator. This message was still three days before now but maybe if he just drove fast enough, he'd arrive in the past. "They aren't that frequent. One or two a month. I couldn't find a pattern to it. So. If you know what this is, let me know. See you soon."

'Tenth new message. Message received on Friday the eighteenth of September at two fifty-one p.m.'

John wasn't expecting another message from Sam so soon afterwards so it was no great surprise when the voice down the line was that of Bobby. It was still somehow disappointing. "John, Bobby again. I heard from Sam. I'm about an hour away. Told Sam not to do anything stupid 'til I get there. Let's hope he got some common sense from his mother, God knows you and your oldest didn't get any."

There was a long pause and some of the taut curtness faded from Bobby's voice when it returned, "I'll find Dean, John. I promise you that." The unspoken hope for alive, the dread of death was heavy in his tone.

'Eleventh new message. Message received on Saturday the nineteenth of September at eight fifty-one a.m.'

John held his breath as he waited for whatever news was on the other end. "Hey John, It's Caleb." He heard his former marine buddy's gruff voice, worried if things had escalated enough for Bobby to call in more help, "Got word on a gun, sounds like what you are looking for. Call me back for more details or just stop by." Then the man hung up with no mention of his boys. John wasn't sure whether to be glad or upset.

'Twelfth new message. Message received on Saturday the nineteenth of September at ten fifty-nine a.m.'

"Dad, Sam again." Sam's voice was crackled with the muzzy traces of sleep, even though he suspected his son hadn't been doing much of that. "Me and Bobby headed up to the woods again. There's nothing there. No trace of Dean but that's not a bad thing. If he'd been stuck overnight in the woods, that would have been bad. He's probably just hooked up with some friendly pair of breasts and is sleeping off any ill-effects." Sam was rambling, hopeful and John wanted to believe the lie but knew he had to stay grounded in reality. Happily-ever-afters didn't exist anymore, not in the Winchester world.

"Bobby says something about this sounds familiar. We could really use knowing what you tackled here before. Even if you can't make it down here," There was a shielded accusation in Sam's tone, "Just leave a message, let us know. I promise not to pick up my phone. Right, whatever. See you."

'Thirteenth new message. Message received on Saturday the nineteenth of September at six seventeen p.m.'

"You know, John," Bobby's voice started off light and conversational but John wasn't fooled for a moment. Bobby was at his most dangerous when he sounded his most reasonable, "I always figured you'd reserved a special level of bastard for me, just to drive me nuts. It's not that reassuring to find out you could use it on your boys too. I don't think I need to tell you that Sam is going out of his mind. He needs his father. Hell, he's needed a father for a long time now but how 'bout you step up to the plate and try your best?"

"I haven't rung just to berate you as tempting as that is. We found a scrap of Dean's shirt in the woods. I won't lie to you, it's torn up. No blood. This thing has me a bit stumped and I'm not ashamed to admit it. It has the trademarks of a Wendigo but people have been walking in and out of here without harm so why is it only attacking a few."

A Wendigo? That triggered off a fountain in John's memory. He had faced a Wendigo in Nevada. Was it a town called Octon? Possibly. John was damn sure he'd got the bastard though. It had ripped him up his left side and very nearly made him symmetrical until he'd lit it up like the fourth of July. Wendigos were territorial. Two in that close an area just wasn't possible.

Bobby didn't say anything else but the way he lingered on the phone indicated that he probably wanted to. He just hung up.

'Fourteenth new message. Message received on Sunday the twentieth of September at eleven thirty-two a.m.'

"Just been to church," Sam's tone was light but John wasn't fooled, the high tight worried note was still there. "Figured Dean could use a few prayers. We're heading back to the wood in half an hour while it's light. We're fairly sure it must be a Wendigo, we'll track its lair and get Dean back. Don't worry yourself about getting here," Sam's voice turned to shadowed hiss and John felt the sting of the barb as if it had been a physical jab, "We'll take care of it."

'Fifteenth new message. Message received on Monday the twenty first of September at six oh-one a.m.'

"Dad," The cracked voice sounded almost musical to John's ears because it was Dean's. It was Dean's breathing which he could hear as slow whuffs against the receiver and he almost imagined he could hear Dean's heartbeat thumping in the background. Wait, he could hear Dean's heartbeat beeping in the background. Dean was in hospital. That could hardly be a surprise given he'd been missing for three or four days. That didn't make it any easier.

"Had to wait 'til Bobby and Sam left to call. They are a bit pissed at you." There was an unsteady chuckle down the other end of the line, "I know you are listening though. You got your reasons, I get that. Can't stop hunting the demon just 'cos me and Sam get in a spot of trouble. Learnt that after Meg. I'm alright. It was a Wendigo, stowed me in its larder. Getting kinda sick of that."

John shook his head. It couldn't be a Wendigo. Not if he'd taken one out just a year before. He tried to will that information across time and space to his boy. "Only thing is I remember you saying you'd got a Wendigo in this area not so long ago. Remembered a bit late but better late than never, right?" John began to wonder if Sam was the only one in the family touched by the more unusual cerebral arts.

"There's something odd about this town. They didn't bat an eye when I was brought it except when Sam looked at them oddly and they started muttering about 'What could have caused this?' It sounded fake. I'm going to get out of here as soon as Sam and Bobby are about." John idly cursed the other two for leaving his eldest alone injured in this suspicious sounding hospital.

"Don't be mad at them." Damn it, was everyone in this family a bloody psychic? "They've gone to pick up some supplies. Sam wanted to stay, he's practically been my very own overgrown puppy guard dog since I got in here. Anyway, hopefully one of them will call you soon. If they do and you answer, pretend I didn't call, right? I promised to sleep." His boy sounded sheepish and John could remember the tone all too well.

'Sixteenth new message. Message received on Monday September the twenty first of September at eight a.m.'

"John, it's Bobby. We found Dean. He's okay, bit sliced up. Looks like a Wendigo but Dean thinks there's something else too. Boy has good instincts. We'll get him settled somewhere safe and figure it out. Thought you'd want to know."

'Seventeenth new message. Message received on Tuesday September the twenty second of September at ten thirteen a.m.'

Yesterday. This message was left yesterday. Just that small bit of information is enough to taunt John and he picked up the phone from its resting spot, takes it off speaker phone and presses it to his head.

"Hey dad," Dean's voice is still crackly but stronger than it was, "Just in the Impala, heading out of town. Bobby's in his truck behind. Shut up, Sam. I'm talking to Dad. Sorry about that."

"So we're all finished here. You won't believe this. Apparently this fucked-up place was practicing voluntary cannibalism. They believed a Wendigo was some sort of protective spirit, got some poor sucker to chow down on roasty-toasty human and then ditched them into the woods until they got growly. That's why the pattern is irregular, it was a rookie Wendigo."

"You got taken down by a rookie Wendigo." He hears Sam's sing-song taunting voice in the background and that's almost a better reassurance that Dean genuinely is okay than anything else could be.

"Shut up, Sam." He can hear the pout in his eldest's voice, "Either way, we've given the town a lesson on 'Why the eating of people is never good' and Bobby is going to make sure someone checks in here regularly to make sure they don't drift back to old habits. I thought you'd want to know. I'm fine. Sam's fine. Just keep after the demon, alright? See you soon."

The last message fades away and John feels relief flood back into limbs that have gone numb. He has no hesitation in deleting all seventeen of those messages. There's only so much his heart can take.


	6. Something crooked

**Title: **A Phone Call

**Author: **Wysawyg

**Disclaimer: **The Winchesters, the Impala and everything belongs to Kripke and the CW and will hopefully continue to do so for many, many, many, many, many more seasons.

**Summary: **The last message on John's voicemail. Follows on from Something Wicked. Spoilers for 2x01.

**Authors Notes: **Many thanks to the awesome TraSan who beta'd this for me and soothed my 'Eee, not good enough' insecurity attack. Any remaining mistakes are all mine.

This tag is probably a lot more sympathetic to John than the episode is but hey, I have a John-bias. I'm all for John the bad father, he's certainly no saint but I don't believe he was deliberately malicious.

* * *

When John Winchester's phone started ringing, he cursed. It wasn't so much the fact that his phone was ringing but rather the position it was ringing from: the absolute bottom of his duffel. It wasn't the phone he cursed but rather himself. He knew he should have expected a call from one of his boys after the latest hunt he'd sent them on. He knew he would probably need to talk to them afterwards. Somehow these facts hadn't connected together to lead him to keep the damn phone somewhere in easy arm's reach.

He tugged the steering wheel sharply to the side, scorching the truck to a skidding halt in the lay-by and thrust his arm to the bottom of the duffel, hoping he'd wrapped all the knives carefully. Blind fingers searched for the elusive device, finally closing around the plastic and yanking it out just in time for the LCD display to flash the name 'Sam' at him once and then fade out.

There was no point calling back. If it was Dean calling then he'd probably just drop off a curt 'Job's done' and hang up. Sam, however… If Sam was calling then Sam had found out exactly what had happened all those years ago and Sam, being Sam, was probably stonking mad. John was already gearing himself up for the epic voicemail message which would probably detail every single one of John's faults in intricate detail. The bitch of the situation was that Sam was probably right.

John didn't bother starting up the truck again, just leant back on his seat and cradled the phone in one hand, waiting for the buzz that would signify Sam had finished his verbal essay. He waited… and waited… and waited some more and finally put the phone away. It was a cold day in Hell and he'd pissed off Sam enough that the boy hadn't even left a message.

John wasn't quite sure whether to feel relief when a few minutes later, before John had even recovered enough to stick the keys into the ignition, the phone buzzed. On the one hand, he had a message. On the other hand, he apparently had the epic message to end all epic messages. Seeing as he'd been sure Sam would be detailing his faults, it appeared that he must have a lot more than he realised.

John pressed nervous fingers to the relevant buttons and waited through the mechanical voice telling him things he already knew. After what seemed like far too long, the message began.

"You suck!" The message began in Sam's pissy voice. John was beginning to wonder whether Dean had somehow convinced his little brother those words were a different version of hello. It wouldn't be the first time. Admittedly Sam had been a lot younger back then but the memory of little Sam walking up to the counter and chirping 'Fuck you' at the attendant was seared in his memory. Dean had been on weapon cleaning duty for a month after that… until John realised the boy seemed to enjoy it too much.

"Oh sorry, I should probably start the phone call with something you actually care about. We got the shtriga. There, you can hang up now if you want, start planning the next wild goose chase to send us on." The venom in Sam's voice made John draw back from the phone and try to ponder what had set him off this time. John had known he wouldn't be able to face that shtriga himself. He still remembered that hunt as clear as yesterday. He'd left the boys alone in the motel room to sneak around the hospital and try to find out what was going on.

The hospital had been full of staff willing to talk to 'Mr Driscoll' of the Centre for infectious diseases but had given no clue about what was causing it.

He remembered ringing Bobby, hoping the senior hunter would have some pearl of wisdom. He remembered Bobby had listened to John describing the symptoms and then hissed, "Sounds like a shtriga. Goes after siblings. You got Dean and Sam with you?" He remembered the absolute silence followed by Bobby's single expletive "Fuck!" He remembered hanging up the phone and dashing to the car. He didn't remember the journey home, memory only restarting when he flung open the door to the motel room, spotting the hideous thing hovering over the prone body of his youngest. He remembered yelling at Dean to get down and then taking the shot. He remembered the thing escaping and having no desire to chase until he'd assured himself that Sam was still alive.

Lastly he remembered getting so drunk that night that he could barely see straight the next morning. Yeah, John fucking balls and bluster Winchester had strode into town, sure that he'd solve the case in ten minutes flat and be out in time for breakfast. He hadn't realised the Shtriga had been there for a while and had merrily chomped its way through the souls of all the siblings in town and was now sucking down the dregs of the only children.

Siblings were a two-for-one blue plate special. You got the sweet, rich, innocence of the younger and then the sour guilt of the older siblings for afters. The Shtriga had been starving on the leftovers before John marched into town with his all-you-can-eat buffet trailing behind him. If John had walked into that motel room just a few moments later, he would have had a comatose Sam and the shtriga coming back for Dean the next night. John didn't dare let either boy out of his sight for weeks until he was sure the shtriga wasn't coming back.

It took a while for it to filter into the guilt-driven reminiscence that Sam was still talking. He would have to replay the message in order to find out what his son had said so far as the words had been lost in the haze of memory. "… He was ten, Dad. Ten fucking years old." John blinked, unsure of whether his youngest seemed to think he'd forgotten the ages of his children.

Apparently you forget one birthday and that's it: guilt trip for life. John listened cautiously, trying to get any hint of what Sam had been ranting about. Instead he found himself wishing that his son couldn't say quite so much with a sullen silence.

"Sam, who you ringing?" He heard the muzzy voice of Dean.

"Just Dad," was Sam's reply and the words stung.

"Oh. You been on the phone a while. Why did you ring him?"

"To tell him we'd finish the hunt." Sam stated and John could almost hear his eyes rolling.

"Dude, I was kinda hoping not to remind Dad of how badly I screwed up the first time around." John felt time slow in that moment as his eldest son's soft-spoken words seeping into his consciousness. Surely Dean didn't… It would be ridiculous to think… No-one could assume that… Oh crap. John wanted to thrust his arm through the phone, grab his boy and shake some sense into him. Unfortunately, or perhaps very fortunately for Dean, phone companies had yet to develop any such technology. A mild electric shock would've done except for the fact he was fairly sure Sam was the one holding the phone at that moment.

"You didn't screw up, you were ten." Sam pissy-voiced.

"Those statements aren't mutually exclusive, Sammy. Can we save the argument for when Dad isn't on the other end of the phone line? Just tell him we got the shtriga and hang up."

"Maybe I want Dad to hear." John was all too sure Sam did.

"Maybe I don't." Dean said curtly, "Dad's out there hunting the thing that killed Mom and you want to waste his time with something that happened almost eighteen years ago?"

"Yes. Especially when you've had eighteen years of guilt from it." John needed to have a serious talk with his boy when he caught up with him. Sure, he'd always taught them not to wear their heart on the sleeve but that was common sense. Hiding guilt for eighteen years was fucking ridiculous.

"I deserve eighteen years of guilt." Dean yelled, his loud voice distorting in the tinny speaker of the phone. The next words were spoken so quietly in contrast and sounded broken, "That thing was alive for eighteen years longer than it should've been because of me."

"You don't even know it's the same one." John decided maybe the electric shock while Sam was holding the phone wasn't such a bad idea. Even he could tell that was exactly the wrong thing to say.

"So the one which is out there because of me could still be out there killing? Wow, thanks Sammy. I feel miles better now."

"Dean, I didn't…"

"Drop it, Sam. Just leave a message and hang up the phone."

"No."

"Gimme the phone."

"No!"

"Sammy, give me the fucking phone!"

"I don't want to."

"Sam, despite recent events, you are not five fucking years old anymore. You don't get the last bowl of lucky charms. You don't always get to watch your cartoons on the TV. Most of all, you don't get to win arguments with 'I don't want to.'"

There was a long silence and John could picture his sons staring at each other, waiting for the first one to break. John put his money on Dean breaking first. His oldest was far too lenient with his younger sibling.

"I never got the last bowl of Lucky charms." John blinked at Sam's voice. Of all the things to talk about, he picks the bloody breakfast cereal. "You made me eat spaghettios."

"No, I didn't." Dean said with a weary patient air. "You sulked until you got the last bowl."

"Did not." Sam said sulkily which almost certainly wasn't helping his argument. He could hear the light-hearted note in Sam's voice, the sound that Sam was trying to shrug off the argument, make things alright with a joke. John held his breath to see if it'd work. "I think I'd remember."

"Fuck you, Sammy." Dean's voice was low and angry and John let out his own breath with a hiss. "I'm the one who'll never forget one fucking thing about that whole fucking day. You had the goddamn lucky charms. Now give me the fucking phone." If John didn't know better, he'd say Dean was on the verge of tears, a hitching catch in his voice. "You know what, Sam? Just do whatever the hell you want as usual." John heard the sound of footsteps walking swiftly away and then the slam of a door.

"Shit," The quiet exhalation was pure Sam and John silently agreed. Moments later there was the rat-a-tat-tat of a fist against a wooden door. "Dean? I'm sorry. Come on, Dean, let me in." There was another series of knocks that went unanswered and another sigh, "Please, Dean. I didn't mean it, I… Fuck!" Sam yelled and there was a loud smack noise, the line getting more crackled and distorted.

John frowned at his phone and turned up the caller volume, bringing it closer to his ear to try and make out what the hell had happened. "Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit." Sam's litany reached his ears.

Next came the distant noise of a door opening and closing. "Sam," Dean's voice croaked and John wasn't sure all of that was due to line distortion, "Why the hell did you just throw my phone at the wall?" Dean's voice was too calm, too level: a sign that Mount Winchester was about to explode.

"By accident." Sam's voice sounded small and quiet. Sam relying on little brother immunity against his brother's anger.

"How the hell can you accidentally lob a phone really hard into a wall?" John was almost counting down the seconds until the shouting started.

"I was mad."

"Accidentally mad?" John was surprised to hear a humorous quirk in his oldest boy's voice. This should be when the yelling began.

"No, I was mad on purpose. I just threw the phone before I remembered it wasn't mine."

"How could you mistake your girly, geek phone for my sleek, manly phone? More to the point, who has to go hustle pool to pay for a new one even if it was yours?"

"Sorry." Sam sounded meek. John couldn't remember the last time Sam sounded meek. He had a feeling it was the time when John had returned from a routine hunt to find half the motel room on fire. Sam had still never explained that.

"Was that the toilet paper word of the day or something?" John's head spun. A joke? Dean was making a joke? Dean should be hitting the ceiling by now.

"Nope. It was callisthenics." Sam replied, "Do you think Dad can still hear us?" John couldn't help but smirk at the worried note in his youngest's voice.

"I think you killed the off button." Dean snarked in response.

"You mean Dad'll be listening in for the rest of our lives?" Sam sounded horrified, John wasn't quite sure whether to be offended or not. He settled on 'Not': he was sure there was aspects of his boys' existence that he really didn't need to listen in on.

"The battery'll run out first, boy genius." He could definitely hear Dean rolling his eyes that time.

"Or the voicemail capacity."

"Nah, Dad paid for high-volume storage. You wouldn't want a message like 'John, found the demon's weakness. It's… beep"

"I always suspected the demon was susceptible to beeps." John needed to ask his son how the hell he'd managed to calm down Hurricane Dean. In the years subsequent to Sam's Stanford departure, John's only refuge was getting out of the motel room for a few hours and making sure to bring back some beer when he returned.

"I'm still mad at you." Dean growled. John wasn't sure whether to be glad Sam hadn't gotten off completely scot-free.

"What for?" Sam's voice was innocence personified. An irony considering the situation that had caused the fight in the first place.

"For breaking my phone, dumbass." John blinked. He had to truly admire Sam's diversionary tactics. Either that or Dean was giving his little brother a free out for the fight.

"It was an evil phone." John rolled his eyes.

"Don't start that again." Again? John brought the phone up closer to his ear.

"Start what?"

"I haven't forgotten the time you exorcised my CD player." John frowned, he'd always wondered what happened to that CD player. It had been a present from Bobby who had argued that Dean needed to develop some musical taste beyond the mullet rock era.

"It was making screechy noises." Sam defended himself.

"It was playing music. Admittedly it was Bobby's taste in music but still."

"When I poured holy water on it, smoke came off." Sam retorted.

"Of course it did, idiot. You fried the electrics and set half the flaming motel room on fire. I can't even look at CDs anymore with remembering that smell." 'That was what happened?!' John thought in alarm. One of these days he needed to sit the boys down and get their version of childhood. He had a feeling he was missing out on a lot.

"Is that why you only have cassettes?" Sam's voice was quiet and cunning.

"No!" Dean said too quickly and John shook his head at his boy. Sam was on to him.

"Dean's scared of CDs. Dean's scared of CDs." Sam's sing-song taunting voice came over clearly until it was cut off by the thump of two bodies colliding and the muffled ow. "Dean! Let go of my arm!"

"Say it, Sammy."

"Dean!"

"Say it…"

"I'm not five anymore." Sam protested.

"And?"

"And Dean is the best big brother in the world. Now get off me."

There was a low amused chuckle from Dean. "Good boy, Sammy."

"It's Sam."

"No sulking, Sammy." Dean sounded far too amused. "You know, Dad probably heard all that."

"Perfect," Sam grouched. "Now when we do catch up with him, he'll be too busy giving us a lecture for me to yell at him."

"I'll stock up on the…" Whatever Dean was planning on stocking up on, though John suspected it was popcorn, John didn't find out as Dean's phone apparently chose that moment to finally lift free from its mortal repose and head up to cell phone heaven.

John sat there with his phone still pressed to his ear for a long moment, listening to the mechanical feminine voice repeat his options over and over again until he finally pressed two to save the message, adding it to the growing collection in his voicemail box.

A pang of longing hit him and he resolved that as soon as possible, he was going to see his boys. First of all, he needed to go see a man about a gun.

* * *

The clank of metal on the ground and a muttered hiss drew Sam out of his daydreams and he peeked out the door of Bobby's home to where Dean's legs were just visible from underneath the Impala, "Need a hand?" He called.

There was a grunt and a muffled ouch from Dean, "M'fine, Sam. Can you just kick that wrench back?"

Sam walked over and booted the metal a little harder than necessary, his irritation creeping through. His brother didn't seem to notice as he just took the tool and silently got back to work. Sam walked back inside without a word and headed out to his bag, pulling out the plastic bag which contained all the recovered belonging of John E. Winchester (deceased). He pulled out his father's phone, running a finger across the scratched metal and then pushing down on the On button. The phone immediately prompted for a pin code.

Sam hoped against hope that his father hadn't done the sensible thing and opted for a random set of numbers. Sam knew he couldn't fix the Impala. Sam was beginning to suspect he couldn't fix his brother. Sam clung to the hope he could at least fix this stupid phone. He knew the sensible thing to do was to wait until Dean was finished with the Impala. His brother was the one with the technical know-how of the two but seeing as Dean practically combusted every time their father was mentioned, he felt the conversation 'Hey. Want to fix our dead dad's phone?' wouldn't go well.

He glared at the display once more and racked his brain for a likely sequence of numbers. He tried their mother's birthday first, the obvious choice, but was met with a 'Pin incorrect'. One try out of three down. There were three more possible birthdays: their father's, Dean's and his. He was fairly sure it wouldn't be their father's, something like that didn't seem like his style so he tapped out Dean's.

He couldn't help but feel a little dart of surprise as the phone lit up with a welcome message and invited him in. He made a note to tell Dean about that, as soon as his brother didn't look like he was about to crack open at every mention of their father's name.

His first stop was obvious and he scrolled over to the voicemail, pressing the green button to play. "You have one new message," The voice told him before adding, "And five saved messages. To listen to your messages, press one. To.." Sam didn't bother to listen to more before jamming his finger on the button for one.

The voice on the other end was unfamiliar and female, another as yet unmentioned friend of their father with some information about the demon. This roadhouse place sounded like a good first stop on tracking the demon down again and Sam made a mental note to tell Dean about the message soon. His brother needed something to focus on.

When the voice asked him about saving, he quickly hit the relevant button. "First saved message…" The voice told him and Sam knew he should hang up, that these were probably private but he couldn't turn away from the last threads of his father. The mechanical voice finished the last of its words and the message began:

"Hello John. It's Hamish, you remember me?" An all too familiar Scottish brogue sounded down the phone line and Sam leant back in his chair and settled in to listen.

* * *

**Authors Notes: **And so it ends. I'd like to say thanks to everyone whose read and reviewed so far especially to the anonymous reviewers to whom I haven't been able to reply personally.

Hopefully this rounds off the series well! I thought I'd leave it up to the readers to decide whether Sam ever tells Dean about the messages.

As always, feedback/concrit/etc greatly appreciated.


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